Presumed innocent : the paradox of 'coming of age' and the problem of youth sexuality in Lolita and Thirteen
- Authors: Gabriel, Fleur
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Platform: Journal of media and communication Vol. 1, no. (2009 2009), p. 47-65
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- Description: This paper uses a post-structuralist perspective to articulate the conceptual limits of the discourse of ‘coming of age’ as a means of examining concerns about the representation of young female sexuality in the media. Through analysis of the content and production contexts of the films Lolita (1997) and Thirteen (2003), it argues that the discourse of ‘coming of age’ is grounded in a contradictory logic that produces conflicting aims: a desire to preserve the innocence of youth and a simultaneous expectation that they ‘grow up’. Using techniques of Derridean deconstruction, the paper examines the effects that this logic produces in terms of how key aspects of ‘coming of age’ contradict what the discourse sets out to determine and how this contributes to perceptions of youth sexuality as problematic. It will be shown that these conceptual contradictions remain unseen in attempts to make sense of the controversial aspects of the two films: the issue of pedophilia in Lolita and the problem of teenage rebellion in Thirteen. Importantly, the deconstructive reading suggests that it is the paradoxical underpinnings of this approach to youth identity that enables the discourse to be thought at all. By working to recognise this, it is possible to move beyond the limits of the discourse and think differently about youth in response to the perceived threat posed to young people by media representations of adolescent sex and sexuality
Sexting, selfies and self-harm : young people, social media and the performance of self-development
- Authors: Gabriel, Fleur
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Media International Australia Vol. , no. 151 (2014), p. 104-112
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- Description: As platforms for self-expression, social media sites require users to consciously, visibly, and deliberately perform their identity. While a dominant developmental discourse encourages young people to test and explore different identities, a self-conscious and highly visible performance of identity via social media brings into question the form and value of this activity. This article reviews a range of popular arguments about how young people use media, and demonstrates how this use comes into conflict with a broader developmental discourse. It proposes that this conflict contributes to the perception that young people's media use is dangerous for healthy development, and that a different kind of approach to youth is needed. Engaging Judith Butler's notion of performativity, the article argues that social media and the structures of performative display are a way to reconceptualise youth and the relationship between social media and young people's self-development.
Deconstructing Youth: Youth discourses at the limits of sense
- Authors: Gabriel, Fleur
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Book
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- Description: Young people are regularly posited as a threat to social order and Deconstructing Youth explores why. Applying Derridean deconstruction to case studies on youth sexuality, violence and developmental neuroscience, Gabriel offers a fresh perspective on how we might attend to 'youth problems' by recasting the foundations of the concept of 'youth'.